Earth has three years to reduce causes of global warming

According to a new study published in influential scientific journal Nature, we have a three-year window to make “significant reductions” in greenhouse gas emissions, or face the consequences. Those consequences can be subsumed under the heading “dangerous global warming” and include serious threats to our food and water sources, as well as health-risks from overexposure to heat.

The paper says that “entire ecosystems” are in the process of collapse, as summer sea ice disappears into the Arctic and coral reefs die from overheating. Its authors call for world leaders to embrace scientific evidence and solutions rather than “hide their heads in the sand”.

Led by Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the experts behind the paper said that the world could emit enough carbon to overshoot the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius in anything from four to 26 years if current levels continue. This target is widely regarded to be the point at which climate change becomes life threatening.

According to the paper, emissions must fall rapidly from 2020 at the latest. In a note, the authors said:

“The year 2020 is crucially important for another reason, one that has more to do with physics than politics. Should emissions continue to rise beyond 2020, or even remain level, the temperature goals set in Paris become almost unattainable. Lowering emissions globally is a monumental task, but research tells us that it is necessary, desirable, and achievable.”

The article was signed by over 60 senior scientists, and is making news as Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has vowed to confront her U.S. counterpart over his decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

Disclosure

Dominion holds a number of companies in its Global Trends Managed Fund that are working to eliminate the dangers posed by climate change to global water and food systems.

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